Page 193 of Lessons in Cruelty

“Vibe?” Bastian pauses en route to tearing into his last taco, and I feel shitty for stopping him in his tracks like that. He puts it back in the basket and wipes his mouth again, taking his time, glancing around like he’s people watching.

We both look up when thunder rumbles in the distance.

“This was supposed to be my treat,” I say.

His gaze is sharp when it lands on me again. “I apologize if I’ve given you the wrong impression.”

A spike of panic goes through me. “What do you mean?”

He takes another sip of beer, sets it down and turns it on its axis for a moment as he looks away. “Miss Lee, listen to me carefully.”

Fuck, that panic spreads through my body, tingling in my fingertips. How the hell did I piss him off so quickly? There’s a sudden tightness at the corner of his eyes that I’m not imagining. The way his fist curls around his beer.

His eyes flick back to mine, and I can’t bear the eye contact he’s making, but I’m too scared to look away.

“You’re making this into something it’s not. You needed a place to stay. There was a space at the sorority. You needed reliable transportation. I had a spare car.”

His voice is so reasonable. So calm.

Like I’m the crazy one for thinking a professor who calls his ‘sweet girl’ at three in the morning to check up on her might want something more. Like the hand on my back never happened. Like the way he’s gripping that beer bottle isn’t exactly how he wants to grip my throat.

“I didn’t mean⁠—“

I cut off at a shake of his head. He glances away again, then back in my direction, but looking past me, not at me.

“I’m just trying to help,” he mutters.

“Yes, of course, and I know that, but it’s just…it’s a lot, okay?”

He’s still not looking at me, and I need him to. Maybe to better gauge his response, maybe because having him look at me is a weird fucking obsession I’ve developed over the past few days.

No one’s looked at me the way he has. With so much respect. Admiration. And genuine curiosity.

I grab his arm, squeezing the muscles beneath.

His gaze returns, his nostrils flaring as if I’ve made it worse somehow. But then he lays a hand over mine, squeezing me back.

“Is it really?” he asks quietly. “Or are you just not used to getting nice things?”

…From anyone who doesn’t want to fuck you, he doesn’t say.

But we both hear it.

I try to pull my hand away, frowning, but he tightens his grip, keeping me locked in place. His thumb finds my pulse. Presses.

He wants to talk about our relationship?

It just climbed over the barrier at Lookout Point wearing even shittier flip-flops than the ones I have on.

Fuck, that feels like an eternity ago.

But whatever I thought that night, it led me here, and here is a hell of a lot better than where I would have been.

Which would be dead.

Or in a coma.

Or, a paraplegic.